Bonus Chapters
The Bonus Chapters are a series of eleven extra chapters on Behind the Mask. They explore different characters and what happened before, during, and after the series takes place. Bonus Chapter One Bonus Chapter One takes place when Rylan was eight. It's after his surgery to remove his cancer, but he's still in the hospital. He is first shown with his mother making sure he was okay. Rylan thinks about how hospitals are funny places -- people want to get better because they're sick, but because so many sick people are in the same place at once, they just get sicker. He also thinks about the people who come to the hospital with no intentions of getting better, and how they know that they're going to die. He then thinks about how he doesn't want to die, but days like the one he was going through, where he woke up and puked immediately, it was hard not to think that. Rylan tells his mom that his dad had come for the lunch break and dropped off comics for him to read. Rylan then talks about how one of his favorite superheroes is Batman because he didn't need powers to be awesome, and how Poof, a real super, has a power Rylan wished he could have -- turning invisible. Rylan's mom recounts how Eagle Eye was near their house that morning, spotted near a Girl Scout fundraiser, then jokes that maybe he likes cookies. The joke makes Rylan hungry, and his mom pulls out a shopping list. She tells Rylan about how they'll need milk for her husband's cereal, then asks if Rylan needs anything. Rylan sarcastically responds, "How about a brain that hasn't been ravaged by cancer?" which upsets his mother. Rylan tells her to go to the store, and that he'll just sleep. She agrees after a bit of arguing, and tells Rylan that she'll pick him up some cider, which he thinks that he'll just puke up. He falls asleep shortly after she leaves. When he wakes up, his room is as silent and as empty as when he fell asleep. He counts the black and white ceiling tiles to make himself less bored, and thinks about things while doing that -- how he should have been nicer to his mom, how the chemo might not work, how he doesn't want to die. A hospital volunteer named Mary enters his room shortly after that, bringing Moby-Dick for him to read, along with some hats. Mary asks Rylan whether he wants the green or blue one, and Rylan asks if he wears the green one and someone kisses him if he'll turn into a kid with no cancer. Mary responds truthfully, and Rylan says he's grateful for the honesty. She gives him the green hat anyway. Afterwards, they play a game called Name that Tune, ''where Mary plays a classical song and Rylan has to say who plays it. Rylan guesses a few times, but every time he's wrong. He tries to give up, and Mary tells him that he isn't there to give up, and won't let him. He thinks about different options. Black or white. Dead or alive. Give up or keep fighting. He guesses finally guesses correctly at the end of the chapter. Bonus Chapter Two This bonus chapter spans from a day before Connor's sixteenth birthday to when he first became Red Comet. It begins with Connor at a party with his two best friends, Alex and Tommy. He thinks that beer tastes a lot like piss, especially warm, but drinks it anyway in fear of being made fun of his peers. He's hiding out in Tommy's basement because he feels ''wrong -- which he misidentifies as a feeling that something bad is going to happen or being sick -- then has a sort of vision of Chelsea Thomas falling in the pool and breaking her ankle. He goes upstairs and finds Abigail and Sarah, who successfully sneaked into the party by riding their bikes there. Abigail tells Connor that he's sick, but he denies it, saying that he feels fine. He goes off with Alex to play beer pong for a supposed picture of Chelsea Thomas shirtless. Before he makes a shot, though, he sees in real life the same vision that he had seen a few minutes prior while still in the basement. He leaves the house, stunned at that. The next day is his birthday, and although he's sixteen, he feels sick and can't enjoy the day. He keeps telling himself that the flu was the reason for everything that's happening: his vision clearing up, his weird stomach aches, and his weird vision of Chelsea the day before. He goes to bed early that night without eating anything or opening any presents. He wakes up the next morning, he wakes up, not feeling nearly as sick. He tries to turn off his alarm, and when he can't find it, he looks for his pillow to pull over his face. When he can't find that, he finally opens his eyes, which expected to be hazy with sleep, and finds that he can see perfectly. Perfectly. From individual pieces of dust on his windowsill to threads in his sweatpants, there's nothing he can't see, as well as hear. It sounds as though his mom's cooking is happening right next to his head rather than downstairs, and the sound of a fly makes him jump and hit his head on a shelf mounted above his bed. He notices next that his head should have been no where near his shelf, as it was a few feet above his bed. It's only then that he notices how he's floating above his bed. Four feet above his bed. Abigail yells at him to shut his alarm off, so he carefully reaches to turn it off, worried he might also have super strength. His mom calls him down for breakfast, but all he's thinking about is how he's a super now. Connor's mom goes outside the door, worried about him, but he's still unable to get down, comparing himself to an astronaut in space with nothing to grab onto. His dad starts to open the door, so Connor protests, lying that he's naked. His dad opens it anyway, and Connor's entire family finds him hovering in midair. His family is stunned, but as the shock of getting powers wears off, Connor just laughs. He tries to tell his family that he can't get down, but is interrupted mid-sentence by falling down. While his parents rush to help him, Abigail laughs at him and he's just glad to be down, though tests to make sure his powers are still working when they are, he feels relieved. That day, he gets called in sick to school. His mom and dad both stay behind with him, his dad finding a place for them to live and his mom calling an unnamed person (though it's hinted that this was Jason she was calling). Connor goes to the basement to test his powers, but every time he tries to fly, he fails. He closes his eyes and concentrates hard, thinking about how Eagle Eye could fly with no problems. He carefully lifts his feet, one at a time, and finds that he doesn't fall -- he hovers. He finds he can move short distances and that he can stay up until, just like that morning, he fell with no warning. He admitted that moving to a mansion in the middle of no where may not be that bad if using his powers was that hard. When Abigail gets home from school, she and Connor joke a little like nothing changed. She gives him his first Word of the Day calendar, which is then referenced throughout the entire series. Abigail suggests something about telling Sarah about Connor's newfound powers, but Connor quickly makes sure that she doesn't, scared that if his secret gets out he'll be tested on by the same people who did the original metahuman testing. Abigail agrees, though says that she doesn't like secrets. Connor, uncomfortable with the silence left after that conversation, blurts out that they're moving, which Abigail is surprised and angry at the new revelation. She states that there shouldn't be a reason that they would need to move unless Connor plans on fighting crime, then adds that their parents would never let him. Connor says that maybe one day she could fight crime too if she got powers, to which Abigail responds that she likes being normal. Connor thinks that Abigail is upset about moving, but Abigail thinks that if they move, everything is going to change. The next day, they move, and Connor describes the house they move into, the Callahan estate, as the fanciest house he's ever seen. He mentions that there are floor-to-ceiling windows, flat screen televisions, and a four-car garage. He mentions that while Abigail was still a little upset, she was glad to have her own bathroom away from Connor. Connor starts practicing his flying more and more, and consequentially starts blowing Alex and Tommy off more and more. On weekends he would drag Abigail out of bed to help him fly, and he thought that even though she complained, she actually enjoyed the time they spent together. One day, Connor and Abigail were outside when Connor asked her what the speed of sound was. When Abigail tells him, Connor says that even though it's high, he can beat that. He succeeds and gets well over the required speed. That night, he has a generally good time, with burritos for dinner and blackjack afterwords. The chapter then skips forward to six months in the future, the day Connor and Abigail's mom died. The entire family is devastated, but for Connor, he intends to do something about it. He goes to his dad's office to ask if he could start using his powers to fight crime, and his dad admits that he was thinking the same thing. Connor is next seen looking for a costume for himself at a thrift store, saying that he wanted to make his own costume, at least at first. He finds a pair of red sneakers a size too small, a tight figure skating unitard, and a roll of spandex. This trip to the thrift store also explains the origins of the masquerade mask from book 1. He buys it all and eagerly heads home. On his way home, however, he runs into Tommy and Alex, who he hadn't talked to in ages. He talks to them for a bit, and they tell Connor that they came to his mom's funeral. They ask Connor if he wants to hang out, and he tells them no, going home as quickly as possible. When he gets home and tries on his costume for the first time, Abigail tells him that he looks like a "giant red penis." While their dad scolds her for the comment, he doesn't correct her, which doesn't help boost Connor's self esteem. He quickly goes off to save a kid falling into a tiger pit at the Morriston City Zoo. Bonus Chapter Three Bonus Chapter Three takes place, again, in the viewpoint of Rylan. It should be noted that this chapter is the only one with a recurring narrator, and all other characters that have perspectives only have it in one chapter. It starts off talking about when Rylan first saw Abigail. He was fifteen, in his freshman year of high school, and he had joined the stage crew for the Morriston High School Christmas play while trying to spend less time in his house. Abigail trips and falls because her jazz shoes are too big, and Rylan notes that unlike other students, she doesn't complain, and instead ties them tighter and keeps dancing. When he gets home, Rylan looks up her name in the yearbook: Abigail Hamilton. He acknowledges that she goes by Abby, but says that it sounds like something a kid would be called. Rylan notes her family: her dad is Mayor Benjamin Hamilton and her brother is Connor Hamilton, both of which were very popular in their circles. Abigail, however, isn't quite as popular, and unlike her family, when she puts effort into something, she often doesn't get the credit she deserves. Rylan, by sophomore year, promises that he is going to talk to her, but he only wants to do it if no one else is around, which never happens. However, one rainy October day, he finally gets his chance: Rylan stayed late to help a teacher and Abigail is waiting out behind the school. Rylan nearly approaches her, but gets too intimidated. A janitor asks if he's okay, as he looks sick, which completely diminishes any chance Rylan had of going out and talking to her. Junior year, Rylan says, is more of the same. Abigail, he says, gets more beautiful, which makes talking to her even harder. Rylan thinks that they are evenly matched as far as appearance goes, which makes them more compatible according to the matching hypotheses. Even so, Rylan still gets intimidated by her and doesn't try to approach her still. Still, he wanted to talk to her, so he rations that he could practice with talking to another girl. He tries first with talking to a girl named Sue McLellan, a freshman stage crew kid. Rylan, for some reason, still gets flustered when talking to her, and runs off after she notified him of the toilet paper stuck to his shoe. Rylan is next seen in his Iron Phantom suit for the first time, which was during the events of ''The Supervillain and Me''. He feels confident in his new suit, so he goes out and tries the hero thing for the first time, incidentally rescuing Abigail. During their first conversation, Rylan's real thoughts are revealed: he feels protected under his mask, so he reveals the version of himself that no one else gets to see. This version, he finds, is witty and bold, doing things he would never do as Rylan Sloan. When he gets home that night, he eats dinner with Franklin. Franklin notices that he's jittery and asks him who the girl is, but Rylan insists that there isn't one. Franklin doesn't seem to believe him, but drops it anyway, and they play Jeopardy for the rest of the night. Rylan goes to sleep thinking about Jeopardy and Abigail, and how he was going to kiss Abigail one day. Bonus Chapter Four This bonus chapter is a piece of Sarah's fanfiction about the Red Comet. It's titled, The Red Comet Stole My Underwear and He Won't Give Them Back? Say Whaaa? It starts off with Sarah in line waiting to meet the Red Comet. She's wearing a sundress and not a Red Comet shirt because fans wear Red Comet shirts but people who would date the Red Comet Category:Books